I may or may not be the worst blogger in the world.

Oh man. Can we say "neglect"? Because that is what I have done with this blog. This blog that should have been documenting my amazing Peace Corps experience in Ukraine. Perhaps I will dedicate this weekend to trying to catch up. It will be a challenge and involve a good amount of time perusing my Facebook Timeline and  Tumblr page for highlights from the past 8 months (holy cow, I have slacked off), but hey, at least everything will be in one place, right? Let's catch up with that cliff hanger I left off with last time around, shall we?

A Day in Nikolaev
Obviously it is kind of difficult to remember the details of something that happened so far back, but I am pretty positive that this particular day involved hanging out with Anne, another PCV in my oblast. On our agenda was eat, explore our oblast center, and head to the zoo there. We walked around Sovietskaya, the main shopping street in Nikolaev where one can find the only McDonald's in the oblast, many stops for ice cream, locals selling handicrafts, pony and toy car rides, and shops, of course. We went into a bookstore here and found a map of the city and Anne asked about finding The Brothers Grimm book in Ukrainian (no such luck on that front). I remember being a bit confused that the street was being call "Sovietskaya" when that was not what the street signs were reading. I later found out that that is what the street was called in the Soviet Era, but people still use this name. Apparently it is pretty common in the predominantly Russian speaking areas for people to do this. It is so ingrained in Nikolaev that even shop advertisements say they are located on Советская. Fun facts!

Anyway...

We started at the monkeys.

So before heading out to Nikolaev, I searched the internet for what there was to see and do there. In my research I learned it has the best zoo in Ukraine. Now, zoos in general make me wary since the animals tend to look sad. I did some research and found out that this zoo is a full member of EAZA, so it eased my mind. Anne and I made our way to the zoo, bought tickets and went to see the animals! Let's just say that as cute as the animals were, they looked so sad and I will not be recommending people go to the zoo here. I am sure that it is miles above so many other zoos out there in Ukraine (and other parts of the world), but it could have been better. Plus, what kind of zoo has no giraffes!?

The Comets performing in Rock Band!

Camp Bereg: Part II
Seeing as how I was back at site with nothing to do in August, I took up another volunteer's call for volunteers at Camp Bereg after people had pulled out of doing it. I enjoyed it the last time around and had fun meeting other PCVs and interacting with Ukrainian students.  My second time around was a blast. Since I was there from the beginning an AISEC volunteer from Brazil that I had made friends with before and I were a assigned a group of campers for evening activities and they were amazing. Every night at camp involved competitions and the top team got to spend the night on the beach and have shashlik by a campfire. I was pretty excited that my team did a great job since it also meant that I would be camping on the beach as well :)

While there, I also celebrated Ivana Kupala, I even made a head wreath and inhaled some bon fire smoke! It was awesome to watch the performances and see how creative the girls got with creating their wreaths.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish out my time at camp. Due to a family emergency, I left camp while everyone was at the beach for the morning.

Emergency Leave: Kiev
Getting to Kiev from camp was an interesting experience. I managed to catch the bus back to Odessa at a reasonable time and made it in time for the next bus to Nikolaev. While on the bus from Odessa, I called Josh, my semi-sitemate, to see if he could call the family we had become close with from his village to see if they could give me a ride to the train station. See, I didn't have my passport on me to be able to go straight to the train station, so I had to go home to Ochakov first. By the time I would have gotten home, I would have had VERY little time to make it back to the Nikolaev by bus in time for my train. Luckily "The Fam," as we call them, said they'd take me to the train station. We made it to the train station just in the nick of time to grab my ticket from the PCV who was nice enough to buy it for me that day and run to the train. The dad of "The Fam" walked me onto the train and got me settled and then handed me a huge bag of food. Oh Ukrainian hospitality!

I got into Kiev early the next morning and hung around the office until the staff got in and found out that my flight would be leaving early the following morning, so I had a day to kill. While in the office I met some volunteers who were getting ready to head to their COS conference, one of which was someone I has started talking to before coming to Ukraine, Alia. Alia heard me talking about the excitement I had about my future kitten, Yablahka, and about the cats I had had back home and she talked about her cats, Reba and Dottie, who she was planning on taking back to the states with her. Cat Lady bonding is always awesome.

At the museum.

After suffering a nice amount of boredom and not knowing the status of my dad's health back home, I took up the offer to go to Pirogovo Open-Air Museum. The funny thing about being a PCV is meeting other PCVs you have never met before and then heading out with them for the day. Just like that! The museum was pretty awesome and had a ton of old houses, windmills, and churches showing the various types of buildings from throughout Ukraine.

I made it back to the Peace Corps office around 6PM and then headed to the apartment of one of the Americans who works for PC Ukraine. Since she was also on her way to the states early the next morning, she offered her place for me to stay instead of a hotel. It was pretty awesome. I took a nice hot bath in a huge tub, ate enchiladas while watching American TV, and had a ginger ale! It is the little things in life that can put a smile on my face. The next morning we were picked up by the PC Driver and went to the airport.

Emergency Leave: America
I flew into Las Vegas after nearly not being allowed onto my plane in Paris, then being held over in Salt Lake City for far longer than I wanted to be. I was picked up by my friends Michelle and Bree. Their first reaction to seeing me was "Holy crap you're tan!" followed by "Geez you've lost weight!" My first American meal was the same as my last: Chipotle. It was glorious and was preceded by a failed attempt at eating pizza at Little Caesar's in the Luxor.

Yum!

The plan was for the girls to pick me up, then to stay the night with Michelle and then to head off for Arizona the following morning since the last thing I wanted to do was spend 2.5 hours in a car after flying half way across the world. My friends Candyce and Jacqi picked Michelle and I up in a rented car the next morning. We stopped at Starbucks on the way where I truly had a hard time deciding between a Coconut Mocha Frappuccino and Iced Green Tea. I chose not to decide by getting both in tall sizes. This made my friends more than amused.

As a part of the plan, we decided to take advantage of being so close to Kingman by going there to eat at Cracker Barrel since Nevada isn't privy to its awesomnimity. It was delicious and I left some Ukrainian money as a part of the tip. After our tasty lunch, we went off to Meadview where they dropped me off at my dad and stepmom's house where I got the same reaction to my appearance.

I spent the week with my dad and went to the doctor's appointments he had and found out more about what was going on with his health. It was crazy seeing him so thin and weak, but luckily he is much better now!

My sister flew into Las Vegas a week after I got there and I went out to pick her up. We stayed the night in Las Vegas with Candyce and Jacqi after eating In and Out, going to play Bingo with them and my friend Conrad, as well as a middle of the night meal at IHOP following $1 roulette in Downtown Vegas. Busy night. We headed back to Arizona the following afternoon and spent the rest of the week in Arizona before we both flew out the next weekend.

By the time I got back into Ukraine, I had missed the First Bell ceremony at school, which bummed me out, but I soon jumped in to school at site!

They love each other!

New Roommates
So in August I got a Facebook message from Alia, the PCV I had met in the lounge in Kiev. Here message went something like this:


The reason I'm writing you is that I'm reconsidering taking my cats home. The main reason is that I'm leaving in 3 months and I don't even know what state I'm going to live in, and I can't bring the cats to my mom's house when I arrive home, because she already has three cats. Also, the flight home with the cats will most likely include a 20-hour layover in Warsaw, which would be really stressful for them.


I hadn't even considered leaving my babies in Ukraine until I met you yesterday; you're the only one I've met thus far who seems to love cats as much as I do and who I feel I could trust 100% leaving them with.


I remember you'd mentioned wanting a cat. My cats (there are 2 of them) are named Reba and Dottie. Dottie is grey and really mellow, and Reba is orange and white and she's a little more energetic. Both are extremely good about using the litter box - I've never had a problem with that. Dottie has been spayed; Reba hasn't yet. You can look in my album "wall photos" for pictures of them. They really love each other so I don't think I should split them up.


Now there is no way I could pass up helping out another cat lover! So I took them in on October 15th and have been giving them love ever since! They are both way sweet and each of them has an original way of snuggling with me.